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Track(s) taken from CDA67267

Reverie d'Amour, Op 20 No 2

composer

Stephen Hough (piano)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: January 2001
Henry Wood Hall, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Andrew Keener
Engineered by Mike Hatch
Release date: March 2002
Total duration: 6 minutes 11 seconds

Cover artwork: Days Gone By (2001). Anthony Mastromatteo (b?)
Private Collection
 

Reviews

‘Another winner from the ever-imaginative Stephen Hough. In all these pieces Hough's magic is presented in full, clear Hyperion sound’ (Gramophone)

‘Powerful, sympathetic and beautifully recorded, and his fans everywhere will be thrilled’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Exquisite presentation … [Hough] is a pianist of such refinement and impeccable technique that he makes everything he plays compellingly interesting … [the Leighton Studies] have a clear awareness of other 20th -century musical styles, including jazz, and there is an element of virtuosity that Hough, of course, delivers brilliantly’ (The Guardian)

‘Hough's performances are magical – scintillating, refined, sensuous in the smaller works, commanding and powerful in Rawsthorne and Leighton. I hope this superb pianist records many more recitals of British music’ (American Record Guide)

‘Hough’s pianism is a constant source of wonder – every chord and phrase perfectly judged’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘These performances can be regarded as definitive … a CD of revealing personal choices of a master pianist, and one that reveals yet more very worthy British music … strongly recommended’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘[Hough] plays with an astonishing command, great insight and some terrific finesse, in a performance that ranges from the elegant and sensitive to the vigorous and exhilarating’ (Hi-Fi News)

‘I’ve long admired the unfailingly beautiful, carefully honed, paradoxically rich but lean textures and sonorities Stephen Hough cultivates … a style in which patient, sustained utterance came to seem immediate, fervent and idealistic  … Crystal-sharp sound and superb performances; transcendental technique in the service of music that at least sets itself transcendental goals’ (Pianist)

‘Hough plays [Leighton] superbly, with marvellous tonal control in the rugged and spiky passages and also in the quiet harmonic episodes that glow with fierce intensity … enjoyable, excellently performed and beautifully engineered CD’ (International Piano)

‘Hough is one of world’s grandest piano performers, imaginative, graceful, powerful, able to dazzle with both his technique and his mind … a haunting and complex collection’ (Philadelphia Post)

‘This is a treat for lovers of the piano … fascinating stuff’ (Manchester Evening News)

‘Scrupulous, full … bodied, and technically impeccable performances … He revels in the sensuous harmonic felicities that color Stephen Reynolds' pastiches and makes an easy task of York Bowen’s fustian textures’ (Classics Today)
The three York Bowen pieces show three contrasting faces of the composer: the Reverie d’Amour is an early piece whose blushingly lush lyricism hovers delightfully close to decadence; the Serious Dance (the second of three such pieces) is a wistful waltz with teasing harmonic side-steps—a Bowen speciality; and The Way to Polden is a later piece where the harmonies are more piquant and the emotion more ‘inside the sleeve’. Chilton Polden is a small village in Somerset and is probably the reference here. (Curiously, ‘Polden’ is also the name of a poem by Tyutchev which was set to music by Nicolai Medtner, a contemporary of Bowen’s who lived only a few miles away from him in Golders Green.)

from notes by Stephen Hough © 2002

Les trois pages de York Bowen dévoilent des visages contrastés du compositeur: Rêverie d’Amour est une pièce de jeunesse dont le lyrisme flirte délicieusement avec une certaine décadence; la Danse sérieuse (placée en second au sein d’un triptyque) est une valse mélancolique riche en frasques harmoniques espiègles—une spécialité de Bowen; et Le chemin de Polden est un morceau ultérieur où les harmonies sont plus piquantes et l’émotion plus retenue. Chilton Polden est un petit village du comté de Somerset, probablement la référence du titre.

extrait des notes rédigées par Stephen Hough © 2002
Français: Isabelle Battioni

Die drei Stücke von York Bowen offenbaren drei unterschiedliche Aspekte des Komponisten: die Reverie d’Amour ist ein Frühwerk, dessen verschämt üppiger Lyrismus sich auf bezaubernde Art an Dekadenz heranwagt; der Serious Dance (das zweite von drei solchen Stücken) ist ein wehmütiger Walzer mit neckischen harmonischen Abweichungen—eine Spezialität Bowens; und The Way to Polden ist eine spätere Komposition , in der die Harmonik pikanter und die Emotion eher verdeckt ist. Chilton Polden ist ein kleines Dorf in der englischen Grafschaft Somerset und wahrscheinlich der im Titel angesprochene Ort.

aus dem Begleittext von Stephen Hough © 2002
Deutsch: Anne Steeb/Bernd Müller

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